TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/121889/12188900.043

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 3.6 KB | 67 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 17

Life in the Golden Ghetto


    As the East German regime collapses before its
anti-Communist opponents, it is yielding up enough evidence of
corruption to provide yet another cause of bitter popular
resentment against the discredited hierarchy. The allegations
of illegal nest feathering have shocked and outraged ordinary
citizens, party members and nonmembers alike. Disgrace knows no
limits for Erich Honecker, less than two months ago the most
powerful man in East Germany: last week the former party chief
and eight of his erstwhile top lieutenants were formally charged
by the state prosecutor's office with "enriching themselves
through abuse of office." Seven of the ex-Politburo members were
packed off to jail pending trial. Illness spared the other two,
including Honecker, from suffering the same fate -- at least for
the time being.

    No evidence uncovered so far in East Germany indicates
plundering on a scale to rival world-class pillagers of
national treasuries like the Marcos family of the Philippines
or the Pahlavis of Iran. Honecker, along with other top party
officials, lived a decidedly bourgeois life inside the walled
luxury compound of Wandlitz, a few miles north of East Berlin.
But last week it was revealed that he also had a $1.2 million
vacation villa on the tiny island of Vilm in the Baltic Sea,
previously thought to be an uninhabited bird preserve. Some of
the perks claimed by East Germany's elite had a style
reminiscent of ward pols in the U.S. Several Politburo members,
for example, held the presumably undemanding post of "honorary
member" of the Construction Ministry's "academy," for an annual
pop of about $10,000. Another favorite ploy was to requisition
scarce building materials for use in the construction of homes
for children and other relatives.

    There has been one scandal that adds up to major marks. The
Politburo's once powerful economic czar, Guntar Mittag, and
Alexander Schalck-Golodkowski, a shadowy financial dealer and
former state secretary for foreign trade, are suspected of
helping divert to Swiss bank accounts tens of millions of
dollars' worth of hard currency. The proceeds came from the
illegal sale of arms, artworks and other goods. The affair has
become known as the Ko-Ko scandal, after the office of
Kommerzielle Koordination, through which the funds were
funneled. Last week Schalck-Golodkowski surfaced in West Berlin,
offering to return some of the funds and promising to fight any
attempt by East Germany to have him extradited. Crimes involving
hard currency are especially offensive to ordinary East Germans,
who blame its scarcity for much of their economic hardship over
the years.

    Politicians are not the only ones who are paying for their
lives of privilege. Members of East Germany's formidable
athletic machine, acosseted elite who have access to automobiles
and posh apartments not available to most East Germans, have
come in for sharp criticism. But it is the abuses by the Bonzen,
or party bigwigs, that especially rankle. The East German
populace was not happy with the country's meager living
standards over the years, and finally it judged them to be
intolerable. But ordinary folk remain stunned that the leaders
of a party ostensibly formed to champion the cause of workers
and peasants could secretly assume a life-style closer to that
of wealthy capitalists. Says Hans Berger, a rank-and-file East
Berlin party member: "We did not expect this of Communists and
their creed of equality."